November 1916: the Second Knot of the Red Wheel Book

A vivid and sweeping panorama of Imperial Russia at war on the eve of revolution.

The month of November 1916 in Russia was outwardly unmarked by seismic events--in the author's words, it "encapsulated the stagnant and oppressive atmosphere of the months immediately preceding the Revolution"--but beneath the surface, society, from the Tsar's bizarre and troubled court to the peasants, workers, and ill-led soldiers in the trenches, seethed fiercely. As no other could, Solzhenitsyn makes us experience the whole bubbling cauldron. In Petrograd, luxury store windows are still brightly lit; the Duma debates stormily about the monarchy, the course of war, and clashing paths to reform; the workers in the huge and miserable munitions factories veer increasingly toward sedition. At the front, all is stalemate except for sudden death's capricious visits, while in the countryside sullen anxiety among hard-pressed farmers is rapidly replacing patriotism. In Zurich, Lenin, with the smallest of all revolutionary groups, plots his sinister logistical miracle. With masterly and moving empathy, through the eyes of both historical and fictional protagonists, the author unforgettably transports us to that time and place--the last of pre-Soviet Russia.